3731.03
License required for hotel or SRO facility.

(A) Every
person in the business of conducting a hotel or an SRO facility shall procure,
in accordance with the requirements specified in this chapter and the rules
adopted pursuant to it, a license for each hotel or SRO facility conducted or
proposed to be conducted.

(B) No
hotel or SRO facility shall be maintained, conducted, or advertised without a
license. No person shall advertise, conduct, maintain, or operate any structure
as a hotel or as an SRO facility without a license, and no person shall operate
such a structure that is not equipped in the manner and conditions as required
under this chapter. No person shall advertise, conduct, maintain, or operate a
licensed hotel or licensed SRO facility in a manner that is inconsistent with
the requirements of this chapter or any rules adopted pursuant to it.

(1) A structure licensed as an extended stay hotel on
the effective date of this amendment may maintain that license by continuing to
satisfy the requirements that were applicable to that extended stay hotel at
the time the license was issued, unless any of the following events occur
regarding that extended stay hotel:

(a) The
owner of the extended stay hotel constructs or alters the hotel.

(b) The owner of the extended stay hotel
surrenders the license issued to that hotel.

(c) The owner of the extended stay hotel
changes the use or occupancy of that hotel.

(d) The license issued to that extended stay
hotel under this chapter is revoked or is not renewed.

(2) If any of the events described in
divisions (C)(1)(a) to (d) of this section occur, the owner of the structure
shall comply with division (C)(3) of this section to obtain a new license to
operate as an extended stay hotel.

(3) Beginning on the effective date of this amendment,
the state fire marshal shall not issue a new license to operate a facility as
an extended stay hotel, and shall not renew such a license issued under
division (C)(3) of this section, unless the facility satisfies the requirements
to be an extended stay hotel as specified in division (A)(3) of section
3731.01 of the Revised Code.

(D) All licenses shall
expire on the last day of December of each year and be renewed in accordance
with the requirements for renewal established in rules adopted by the state
fire marshal pursuant to division (A) of section
3731.02 of the Revised Code.

(E) A person who has received a
license, upon the sale or disposition of the hotel or SRO facility or its
removal to a new location, may, upon obtaining consent of the state fire
marshal, have the license transferred. No license shall be transferred without
both an inspection conducted by and the consent of the state fire marshal, and
the state fire marshal shall not unreasonably withhold consent.

(F) A license to maintain and operate a
hotel or an SRO facility shall not be issued to the keeper, owner, or lessee of
any hotel or SRO facility where accommodations for assignation purposes are
furnished, or to any keeper, owner, or lessee who has been convicted of keeping
a place in violation of the law relating to houses of assignation or places of
public nuisance.

(1) No person licensed to maintain and operate a hotel
or SRO facility shall also maintain and operate an agricultural labor camp,
apartment house, apartment, lodging house, rooming house, or hospital or
college dormitory in the same structure as is located the licensed hotel or SRO
facility, unless the agricultural labor camp, apartment house, apartment,
lodging house, rooming house, or hospital or college dormitory has been
constructed as, and been approved by the building official having jurisdiction
as being, a separate building within the hotel or SRO facility structure in
accordance with the requirements specified in the state nonresidential building
code adopted pursuant to section
3781.10 of the Revised Code or is
separated in a manner that satisfies the requirements for occupancy separation
specified in that code.

(2) All
hotel and SRO facility uses shall continue in accordance with their approval
under the license issued by the state fire marshal unless a change in use or
occupancy has been approved by the building official having jurisdiction over
the hotel or SRO facility and the license has been revised by the state fire
marshal.

(H) If an
extended stay hotel license is revoked by the state fire marshal in accordance
with section
3731.06 of the Revised Code, the
owner of that structure shall not operate that structure in accordance with the
use and occupancy classification for which the structure was approved or in
accordance with the license issued under this chapter by the state fire marshal
and shall not open that structure for use by the public until and unless the
state fire marshal determines, in accordance with the requirements specified in
the state nonresidential building code adopted pursuant to section
3781.10 of the Revised Code and
the state fire code adopted pursuant to section
3737.82 of the Revised Code, that
it is safe for the structure to be operated. If, after the license is revoked,
the owner wishes to operate that structure as a hotel, the owner shall comply
with division (D) of section
3731.06 of the Revised Code.

(I) A license to maintain and
operate an SRO facility shall permit the facility to offer rooms for thirty
days or less if less than fifty per cent of its rooms are occupied for a period
of thirty days or less.